The Golden Ones
by Donna Rose
Summary: Harry, Ron and Hermione are all victims of the war. They all suffered, and they all deserve a normal life afterwords. Unfortunately, it's going to take a lot more work to obtain that. Death Eaters, Auror Training and even just relationship problems are leaving the Trio without much peace. Trio-centric, mostly cannon ships. Neville/Luna included.


_A/N. This is an after-the-war fic, mainly in Harry's point of view, because he's the main character, and Ron's, because I find his character to be really interesting. Each chapter will start with a relevant memory of one of the Trio's and then the chapter will go on. I do have a pretty good plot to this, that involves more action than angst, unlike this first chapter would suggest. Have fun reading!_

_** "It gave him an odd, empty feeling to remember those times;**_

_** it was like remembering a younger brother whom he had lost."**_

_** -Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. **_

* * *

_The teacher had given them a simple assignment. 'Draw your home.' Not your house, Harry had noted dully, but your home. The only house he'd ever lived in was the Dursely's and that, he was sure, was not a home. Maybe he had a home before. When he lived with his mum and his dad. He wished he could remember that home more then anything. _

_"Uncle Vernon?" Harry dared to ask. He hoped maybe his Uncle remember where Harry's home was. Vernon grunted, which Harry assumed was a noise of recognition, and continued. "What is my home like?" _

_"Home? Freaks don't have homes! Only normal people have homes. You, boy, have a room. And you should be bloody well grateful for it." Harry would've shut up and gone away, but he wanted so much to pass this assignment. _

_"Well...when I lived with my mum and dad...before they..crashed... Did I have a home then?" _

_"No. Your parents were freeloaders, probably lived in a van or something." Vernon answered, eyes still not leaving the screen. _

_"Well my teacher...she..she said that..anywhere where you love each other..is..is..a home." Harry said timidly. Vernon, scoffed. _

_"Loved each other? Boy, your parents got married because she was pregnant. You were a burden on them and their families. There was no 'love' anywhere!" Vernon said. Harry sighed deeply, willing himself not to cry. 6-year-olds didn't cry, epically him. _

_"Oh. Ok." He said, his voice wavering. He headed dully to his cupboard. Maybe he'd draw what he thought a home would look like. He could pretend it was for a little while. _

_So he drew a big house, that was a little bit old so it was a bit messy, unlike the surgically clean Dursleys. There was a big clock in the living room and little clocks everywhere, so that way he'd never forget what time it was, unlike when he was in his cupboard. But best of all the dishes did themselves, so that he never had to do them. _

_He fell asleep wishing desperately that somehow he'd wake up, and he would be in the house he drew, but most of all, a house in which he was loved._

* * *

It was the last day of rebuilding Hogwarts. McGonagall had already told Harry five thundered times to take a break, but Harry wouldn't dare. Hogwarts had given him a proper home and care for the first time in 10 years of his life, and he was determined to see it offer one last bit of care, one last hour of comfort, before he had to leave it.

The teachers would never know just how much Hogwarts meant to him, how seeing it destroyed was like seeing his house burn, and how rebuilding it felt like repaying some sort of debt he owed to the old building, to the teachers, to Dumbledore.

But when Ron and Hermione had dragged him to the great hall, where they had been sleeping while the common rooms were being finished, Harry found himself to be actually quite exhausted.

"Thank you!" Hermione said, exasperated. She'd been trying for hours to get Harry to take a rest, or at least to sit. The initial rush of having won lasted only a fleeting night. The celebration turned quickly in to mourning, the happiness that no longer having to fight every year of their childhood had faded in to the realization that their childhood had been spent fighting. And that, along with the deaths had shaken them all.

Harry was so static, just working and not laughing or even thinking. She hated seeing Ron the same way, emotionless, morning the death of his brother, how he cringed every time he saw George, or saw a stray Wealey's Wizarding Wheezes product being used by someone desperate to cheer people up. She hated seeing them hurting.

She was privately very happy that her family were all muggles, and that she lost no one of too great relation in the war. Friends and Acquaintances had given their lives, but Hermione only had two very close friends, and they were thankfully sitting next to her. Hurting, but at least alive.

"Hmm. I just...I need to... I need to help." Harry said. Hermione gave a him an understanding smile, and seeing it, Harry wanted to laugh at the irony. Hermione was never the one who made jokes or just smiled so genuinely in a grave situation. That was..that was Ron. It hurt so much to see Ron, usually so happy and careless, to be so grave and unfeeling. It was so hard to watch him walk around the halls- the same halls they used to laugh and talk and play in, stiffly and unobserving.

But then seeing Hermione, so happy and so...so...unhurt, was uplifting. He didn't imagine that she wasn't a victim, that she didn't mourn the deaths of classmates and friends as much as he did, but she didn't show it. He looked once at her, and the oh-so-genuine smile and knew she'd help them be okay. He smiled back, hoping that maybe they could make Ron smile again, that maybe all hope to have things being alright was not completely lost.

After Hogwarts was built, and it was time for the faithful people who had stayed to rebuild Hogwarts to home, Harry found himself facing a rather horrible and daunting problem; He hadn't a home to go too.

He realized that he hadn't a clue where the Dursleys were (but that hardly mattered, if they didn't have the decency to give him a home when they were told too, what made him begin to think they would give him shelter when he only asked it of them?)

The Weasleys would need time to mourn Fred together, without him in their hair, without him to require food and shelter, without him being a general mess.

Hermione needed time with her parents, so that she could explain what happened. Who knew? She might even just stay in Australia. Maybe Ron would move there too.

Anyone he'd ever considered a parental figure was now dead, and as tempting as the thought was to join them, he knew he shouldn't, that he couldn't, that if he'd survived the Dursleys he could stand living on the streets or something.

Hogwarts was a lovely thought, the place that had given him a home for so long, but he knew in his heart of hearts that staying at Hogwarts, seeing the beds of old and now dead classmates, who's deaths he believed to be on his hands, would hurt more then he'd ever be able to stand.

More than anything he had no idea how he'd be able to stand sleeping with out Ron and Hermione near. He would feel horrible and over-attached to admit it, but having slept in the same room as them for over a year during a time who was always in danger, had become a sort of safe haven. They could defeat anything together, even death. And the thought of not having them beside him was a scary thought.

Hermione came over a few moments later, and still with that genuine but bittersweet smile asked him what he was thinking about.

"I..about...home." He answered. Hermione frowned slightly at how foreignly he said 'home'.

"Oh yes, the Dursleys will be pleased to hear that you're all right!" She said. 'All right' was a stretch, but it was better then 'alive but hardly living'.

"Oh yes, I'm sure. 'What the hell are you doing here! Who cares if the freak's dead or not!' Frankly I'm inclined to agree." Harry said. Hermione, while shocked at the dismissal of his own life, was more angered and worried to hear that the Dursleys, however dramatized by Harry, had at least at least called him 'freak.'

"I don't agree." She said simply. Talking about it would be better, of course, but she wasn't going to push it.

"I know." He replied. Hermione was thankful when Ron came over before the discussion could turn anymore awkward, before realizing horribly that Ron probably hadn't come to cheer them up or to tell a joke.

"Uhm, Harry, Hermione, we're leaving tomorrow so..." He said. Fred's funeral was to be held in a week, and his mum had trusted Ron to invite Hermione over to stay as well.

"Oh, right, I'll go say good by to your parents and Ginny." Harry said, getting up to go say farewell.

"What? You're...you're..not coming?" Ron choked out. He wasn't coping well with Fred's death regardless, but without having Harry and Hermione by his side at the funeral...he didn't think he would make it.

"Coming where? I've got to go find somewhere to stay." Harry said.

"Harry! You're staying with me, you idiot! And you'd better be because...because...I need you guys." Ron said. It was true, he need them more then he could ever say, since when he first met them. They were his family just as much as Ginny and Fred and George and Bill and Charlie. He needed them at the funeral, he needed them to make him laugh if George couldn't.

And Harry needed a home.

_A/N Reviews are love. _


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